March 2010 Archives

Thank you so much to everyone who commented and wished us well. The Partnership Celebration was amazing; it surpassed my wildest expectations of how much love and connection could be gathered in one place. I am still a bit overwhelmed by the whole experience—I felt like it was over in a flash, and so packed with expressions of love, support, pride, and creativity that I will be mentally unpacking it for quite some time. I've been waiting to post about it until I'd "gotten some perspective," but I'm starting to think that might take years!

There were also some amazing family and fiber-arts connections in the form of gifts, which I will share with you internet lovelies when the time seems right. For now, if you're curious or just want to see how the dress turned out, check out our amazing photographer's blog post with her sneak-peek of our photo gallery.

To answer a few questions:

My shoes came from Imelda's. Portland people, take note: they are also available in black and YELLOW!

People were curious about the little water bottles. They were for a ritual where we had everyone collect water from a source that was meaningful, either to them personally or in terms of their relationship with us. People went above and BEYOND, by the way. Then we had each person come up and add their water to a decanter we were holding. We used the full decanter to water a series of little plants, and everyone got to take one home. We liked the symbolism of our entire community supporting us and each other. There is a picture in Heather's blog post of us holding the decanter.

We got up to about 600 cranes by the day of the Celebration, but I'm betting we only used about 300 of them. Moral of the story: it pays to think about how many of a thing you will actually WANT, before making as many as you CAN. :-) There's also a picture of the decorated room in Heather's post.

Knitting posts to come! I also apologize to all those whose emails are waiting unreturned in my inbox. I will be working on getting caught up over the next few days; I just really needed some time to unplug after the big event. Some exciting fiber developments are in the offing, however. Stay tuned.

The dress is done! And it's beautiful. I'm so pleased and satisfied. But I'm waiting until Heather's uber-talented photography can show you the final results. I know, I'm such a tease.

We're rushing madly about in an attempt to get all the last-minute logistics taken care of before our Partnership Celebration, but I've been making an effort to document the small, quiet moments of beauty and meaning in between the harried errands and frantic emails. Above, the earrings that inspired my dress color: watered jade teardrops, bought by my grandfather for my grandmother in Hawaii in the 60s.

Some of the craft time normally reserved for knitting around here has been usurped by paper crane-folding. David's mom and my own have both been pitching in by folding cranes. My godmother organized a crane-folding shower, and Anne even recruited her friends Etsuko and Yoshiko to help! How sweet are they? It's lovely to feel that these flocks are a gift from our community, and that that community is larger than we realized.

Pretty good find on the shoe-color, no?

We mailed everyone tiny bottles in which to collect a bit of water from a meaningful place; they will figure into our event, although it's a secret exactly how! It's been a blast to see them trickling back to us through our mail-box; we now have melted snow from Mount Charleston, rain-water from my grandmother's garden, tap water ranging from DC to Portland, and Pacific salt water from Cabrillo Bay. Back when I took this, the bottles were still waiting to journey out into the world:

And what does Mr. Bingley think about all this? He's not sure. NOT AT ALL SURE. (Note the beautiful cushion painted by David's dad!)

One week, people!

PS: Once the dust clears, I have a cool series in mind on (gasp!) actual knitting. I've been de-stressing with a new design I'm really enjoying; hopefully you will, too. :-)